NBA to cancel camps; more Spurs look overseas

The NBA will announce today that the start of training camps will be postponed in light of minimal progress towards a new collective bargaining agreement that could end the lockout imposed by the league on July 1.

The decision could move some key Spurs to join the growing list of players signing on with teams overseas.

Before departing Argentina, where he helped Brazil qualify for next summer’s Olympic tournament, center Tiago Splitter told the Express-News he would sign on with Flamengo, a Brazilian club where former Suns guard Leandro Barbosa currently plays, if training camps were postponed or canceled.

“I do not want to be waiting for something to happen,” Splitter said. “I want to be playing, so if our (Spurs) camp will not start on time then I think I will sign with Flamengo.

“Of course, I will make sure I will be able to join the Spurs when the lockout ends, but I want to be playing and working on my game.”

Spurs All-Star guard Manu Ginobili has an offer to rejoin Virtus Bologna of the Italian League, but his agent, Herb Rudoy, reiterated on Thursday that Ginobili has made no decision about the Virtus offer, even after Thursday’s disappointing news.

Spurs guard Tony Parker, whose stellar play led France to an Olympic berth and a second-place finish in the EuroBasket tournament that concluded last weekend in Lithuania, has indicated his intent to play for French pro league team ASVEL, which he owns, if the lockout lingers into the regular season.

Forward DeJuan Blair already has signed on to play for the Russian team Krasnye Krylya Samara, and has been in Russia for more than two weeks.

An Associated Press report on Thursday, citing a person with knowledge of the NBA’s plans, indicated that today, the league officially will cancel the scheduled start of training camps and some preseason games.

NBA commissioner David Stern, deputy commissioner Adam Silver and Spurs owner Peter Holt, chairman of the owners’ labor relations committee, met for five hours in New York on Thursday with NBPA president Derek Fisher, the Lakers guard, and union executive director Billy Hunter.

When the meeting ended without real progress, both sides admitted time has run out to save the start of training camps, scheduled for Oct. 3. The first preseason games are scheduled for Oct. 9.

Both Stern and Fisher used the same phrase — “the calendar is not our friend” — in describing the time crunch that will produce today’s official announcement.

Should the cancellation of camps and preseason games continue for more than a few days, the likelihood that the season will begin on Nov. 1, as scheduled, seems highly unlikely.

“I don’t have control of that part of it,” Fisher told reporters in New York. “That would be more of a commissioner Stern, Adam Silver question in terms of logistics of starting the season on time.

“I’m not going to try and make a guess on that one. The calendar’s obviously not our friend, but we’re not going to give up on the process because of the time.”

Asked if he believed the state of negotiations allowed enough time to save the scheduled start of the regular season, Stern told reporters in New York he could not respond.